Scouring compositions such as particulate compositions or liquid (incl. gel, paste-type) compositions containing abrasive components are well known in the art. Such compositions are used for cleaning and/or cleansing a variety of surfaces; especially those surfaces that tend to become soiled with difficult to remove stains and soils.
Amongst the currently known scouring compositions, the most popular ones are based on abrasive particles with shapes varying from spherical to irregular. The most common abrasive particles are either inorganic like carbonate salt, clay, silica, silicate, shale ash, perlite and quartz sand or organic polymeric beads like polypropylene, PVC, melamine, urea, polyacrylate and derivatives, and come in the form of liquid composition having a creamy consistency with the abrasive particles suspended therein.
The surface safety profile of such currently known scouring compositions is inadequate, alternatively, poor cleaning performance and/or poor exfoliation to provide the desire skin care benefit is shown for compositions with an adequate surface safety profile. Indeed, due to the presence of very hard abrasive particles, these compositions can damage, i.e., scratch, the surfaces onto which they have been applied, and irritate and/or damage the skin of the user, while with less hard material the level of cleaning performance and skin exfoliation is insufficient. Indeed, the hand dishwashing formulator needs to choose between good cleaning performance but featuring strong surface and skin damage, or compromising on the cleaning performance while featuring an acceptable surface safety and skin safety profile. Moreover, the hand dishwashing formulator needs to ensure achieving such cleaning whilst providing adequate product rheology, optimal product dissolution and sudsing profile, and mild skin exfoliation benefits.
There remains, therefore, a need to provide a liquid hand dishwashing composition suitable to clean a variety of dishware surfaces, wherein the composition provides good cleaning performance of stubborn, hard to remove soils, and mild skin exfoliation, whilst providing a good surface safety profile. Further desired composition characteristics include optimal product rheology, dissolution and suds profile.
An advantage of the present invention is that in the compositions herein, the particles can be formulated at low levels, whilst still providing the above benefits. Indeed, in general for other abrasive materials, high levels of particles are needed to reach good performance, thus leading to high product cost, process difficulties, incompatibility with many packaging configurations e.g.: squeeze or spray bottle, poor rinsing, inadequate product dissolution and suds profiles, as well as un-appealing product aesthetics, and unpleasant hand feel.